With Every Breath (Slow Burn 4)

Gracie looked even unhappier. “No one knows but they’re all worried. She isn’t herself. Hasn’t been for some time but especially over the past several days. Everyone has been on tiptoe around her but you know Eliza. She’s very private and extremely tight-lipped.”

“What the hell do they expect?” Wade snapped in a louder voice than he’d intended.

Damn it. She didn’t even have to be anywhere in the vicinity and she still managed to rattle his iron composure. He needed to get laid. Work her out of his system and damn sure out of his every waking thought. The problem was, when he looked at other women with sex on his mind, all he saw was . . . her. And that pissed him off.

Gracie recoiled at the fury in his voice, her eyes widening in surprise at his vehemence.

Wade’s jaw ticked with irritation and he held up his hand, ticking off points one by one on his fingers.

“Let’s see. She gets kidnapped, tortured and fucking waterboarded. She came this close to dying,” he snapped, pausing to lift his hand and hold his thumb and first finger an inch apart before resuming once more. “And she doesn’t even take a goddamn day off to rest and recover before she’s back on the job and we go after the fuckers that hurt her, you and Ari. She damn near gets killed again, but I took the bullet meant for her. If I hadn’t been there? She’d be in the ground right now. Does she take any down time then? Fuck no. She’s back at work like nothing ever happened and now suddenly everyone is worried about her?”

He shook his head, his anger simmering like a cauldron.

“Is she sleeping at all?” he demanded.

Gracie blinked. “I-I don’t know, Wade. How would I?”

“You can read her damn mind, can’t you?”

Gracie flushed and Wade immediately felt guilty.

“I’m sorry, Gracie,” Wade said in a low voice. “That was uncalled for and a shitty thing to say. Damn it! That woman infuriates me.”

“I could read her mind if I ever saw her,” Gracie said quietly. “I think . . .”

“What?” Wade said sharply.

“I think she’s avoiding me for that very reason,” she said with a frown. “It’s like if I run into her or I go to the office to see Zack and she’s there, she immediately finds a reason to disappear. What else am I supposed to think?”

Wade swore viciously under his breath. Oh yeah. The little hellcat likely did have something—a lot—to hide. Like the fact that she was probably running on empty and barely existing on fumes. He wanted to track her down and beat some sense into her, and he would if it weren’t likely she’d kick his ass. Or at the very least rearrange his nuts for him. And well, he was finished with the little vixen. She was trouble with a capital T. If it were all the same, Wade was done with her and DSS and anything to do with them or their missions. He had enough on his plate without trailing after a brazen woman who was bent on saving the world while he had the unfortunate task of saving her.

Ungrateful heifer. She’d spit on him before ever acknowledging that he’d saved her snarly ass. Not even a thank-you. A fuck off, yeah. Thank you? No. Instead, all the thanks he’d gotten was that he couldn’t look at another woman and see anyone but her. Couldn’t imagine having sex with anyone but a petite, snarly-mouthed, sassy, short-tempered blonde. He snorted, causing Gracie to look at him with an odd expression on her face.

“Eliza is a coward,” Wade said. “She won’t want to set foot in a place owned and run by me. After I took a bullet for her, she conveniently finds a reason to be elsewhere if I’m anywhere around.”

“Join the crowd,” Gracie said, a hint of hurt to her voice.

That settled it for Wade. Eliza could get over whatever was up her ass. No matter what the little spitfire was afraid Gracie would pick up from her thoughts, she would attend. He wasn’t going to let anything or anyone ruin Gracie’s night to shine.

“She’ll be here,” Wade said grimly. “If I have to haul her here over my shoulder, she’ll be here.”

Gracie immediately looked alarmed. “Uh, Wade, never mind. Really. Maybe we should just back off and give Eliza her space.”

“Don’t worry,” Wade said silkily. “I won’t really haul her to your exhibit over my shoulder.” Liar. “I just plan to have a perfectly civil conversation with Eliza when I personally issue the invitation to her.”

Or rather his ultimatum. For the first time when thinking of an impending confrontation with Eliza, he wasn’t seized by annoyance. No, he was looking forward to pissing her off. And the best part? He might annoy the ever-loving hell out of her—the feeling was entirely mutual—but she damn well knew he didn’t bluff. So she’d have no choice but to come of her own volition. Or suffer the indignity of being hauled to the event by Wade.

THREE

ELIZA knew she’d been scarce ever since she’d received the call from the DA. She also knew she’d been avoiding her coworkers, which wasn’t the smartest thing in the world if she didn’t want them thinking, or rather knowing, what she was planning, what she must do at all costs. But the simple truth was she couldn’t bear to face them. Shame was a living, breathing presence that encompassed her heart and soul.

The people she worked for epitomized all that was good. No, they didn’t always do everything by the book. They broke the rules, but in the end, justice was served, and wasn’t that all that mattered?

One of her bosses disarmed a monster who posed no further threat, but then that hadn’t been true either. The bastard’s psychic ability and the fact he’d created a link to both Caleb and his now wife, Ramie, meant that even behind bars, he could exert his will and control, making the couple’s lives hell. He’d already used Caleb to hurt Ramie in a horrifying manner. The memory still sickened Eliza every time it came to mind. The only way to sever that irrevocable tie binding them to him was for Caleb to kill him. And he had. By putting a bullet through his evil, twisted brain.

Oh, they’d wiped down the scene. Made damn sure it had appeared as though Caleb shot in self-defense, planting a gun with no other prints into a madman’s hand, finger on the trigger. It may not have been the legal or moral thing to do. But it had been righteous.

Just as her mission was righteous. Maybe not to the public, the police, the justice system. But to the women he’d tortured and killed? To their families? To Eliza herself? Yeah, it was righteous. She doubted the families cared how he paid, just as long as he did. People couldn’t possibly understand or conceive the monster behind the polished, charming façade. But Eliza was acquainted with it better than anyone. Only she truly knew the depths of his evilness and it was only she who could end it all. Maybe that made her just as sick and twisted as Thomas was. Or perhaps it took evil to hunt evil.